If you didn’t know already, every Friar is eligible to play in the Mal Brown game. Neener, neener, neener. You can’t touch us here, NCAA!

The Fanfest will feature the annual Mal Brown intrasquad scrimmage at Noon in the newly renovated Mullaney Gymnasium with the 2012-13 men’s basketball team led by Head Coach Ed Cooley. All members of the Friar men’s basketball team will participate in the intrasquad scrimmage, including 2012-13 Preseason First Team All-BIG EAST Selection Vincent Council, LaDontae Henton and Bryce Cotton, as well as, newcomers Ricky Ledo, Josh Fortune, Carson Desrosiers and Tyler Harris.

Sometimes the Mal Brown game can foreshadow a season’s performance. LaDontae Henton showed Friar fans right from the start what kind of productive player he could be, scoring a game high 18 points with a perfect 4-4 from three point range. Other times, it could be a complete utter fluke like two years ago when Dre Evans scored 18 points and dished out 5 assists. Evans ended up only scoring 45 total points in his short Providence career, which was about 44 more than the number of readable things he posted on Twitter. It’s fun to see the team finally play after waiting all offseason, but I’m not going to lose my shit if Brice Kofane drops 20 points.

When Cooley addressed the NYC alumni on Tuesday night, he also said he had a romantic drive down with his wife as they listened to Barry White — with Council there in the back seat…

Cooley joked that he talks to the Brooklyn product more than his wife – that how important he feels the bond is between point guard and coach.

“Your point guard has to be your eyes and ears, your point guard has to be your clone,” the coach said. “The more time you spend together, the better you’ll become.”

Ron Patterson got an offer from Syracuse according to ZagsBlog, and plans on taking an official visit soon.

2014 forward Alec Brennan (who attended PC’s Late Night Madness last weekend) just picked up an offer from Vanderbilt according to his AAU coach. He has a ton of other offers already aside from Providence (who offered in June): Kansas State, Purdue, Seton Hall, Temple, St. Bonaventure, Delaware, UMass, Rhode Island, Brown, St. Joseph’s, and Iowa State.

A good preview for the Friars after Jaden Daly took in BIG EAST Media Day yesterday.

A major part of the program Cooley is attempting to build will be point guard Vincent Council, who comes into his final year in the Ocean State with an all-Big East honor and averages of nearly sixteen points and over seven assists per game, respectively. ”I think he’s going to be the Player of the Year in this league,” Cooley remarked emphatically. ”I think he’s the best point guard in the country. It (the team) starts and ends with him.”

In case you missed it on their site, here are the 4 teams RTC picked to finish below the Friars:

#12: Villanova (!!)

#13: DePaul

#14: Seton Hall

#15: Rutgers

Whom to Watch

Providence fans can expect a steady contribution from its returning upperclassmen, although it will interesting to see if Council can play more efficiently as a senior after shooting 39% at high volume last year. 6’9” 250-pound Kadeem Batts must become more assertive in the paint in order for Providence’s frontcourt to not regress from a year ago. But the successful integration of newcomers Kris Dunn, Sidiki Johnson (and possibly Ricky Ledo) will help dictate whether Providence can lift itself out of the Big East gutter. If Ledo doesn’t step on the floor this season and Dunn’s shoulder rehab goes less than swimmingly, PC will likely continue to languish in the bottom third of the conference.

The Noah Vonleh dream is over, as the Top 5 ranked big man of 2013 cut his list to Indiana, Georgetown, Syracuse, UConn, UNC, and Ohio State. While maybe a long shot to begin with, PC has been on Vonleh for awhile. After a visit last year he had great things to say about Coach Cooley, and it would not have been crazy for the Friars to make his list after he reclassified to 2013 last month. Look at the bright side, at least we don’t have to go through the same hoopla as Nerlens Noel with being on his list/not being on his list towards the end.

This was from former URI coach Tom Penders. All of this is dependant on Kris Dunn returning and contributing at a high level right away. Vincent Council is great obviously, and you all know how much I love Ice Cotton. But let’s not forget what Gerard Coleman brought the team, despite all of his warts.

@ESPNAndyKatz I look for DePaul and Providence to be surprise teams this year. Backcourts are key to winning in CBK.

Providence head coach Ed Cooley said he was looking for­ward to speaking with his players at practice on Wednesday night about the ranking.

“Our players are going to be pissed off about that, because how far we’ve come to do what we’ve done in a year’s time,” Cooley said.

“I don’t know if there’s ever been a preseason first team guy and his team picked last,” Cooley said. “We’ll use it as motivation, but it really doesn’t matter what the number is right now. We’re more excited to see where that number is in March.”

I don’t know too much about Noel’s history of high school, but sounds like his eligibility was more around all of his visits. Ledo would have had issues no matter where he went, since he needed a waiver and went to the shady Notre Dame Prep..